r/foodstamps

In my line of work, the question of how to cut internet bills comes up constantly so as to free up some extra cash each month, so posting it here in case it helps someone.

If you're on SNAP or your income is under about $32k single / $43k for two, you should know that a handful of nonprofits and community orgs across the country buy data wholesale from the big carriers and resell unlimited 5G plans for $10-15 a month. (The catch is most make you buy the hotspot, $60-150 upfront.)

A few nonprofits will also rent the device to you instead, so you're paying roughly $25 a month with nothing down. None of them run credit checks from what I know. Search your city plus "low income hotspot program" or "nonprofit hotspot rental program" and you can find them. Bring an actual award letter, dated recently, and you'll probably qualify.

If you have a K-12 kid and they're on free school lunch, I also highly advise that you ask the school for help with your internet bill. I'm serious. There are still active carrier education programs that do stuff like hand out free hotspots and usually these have a couple hundred gigs of free usage a year.

Whatever you do, I implore you: please skip the day-rental hotspot services. These always, always, ALWAYS pencil out to $200-300 a month, and the postpaid carrier gear is worse because, if you lose the device, you're out like $350 minimum right there.

Really hope this helps, guys.

So I go to this very expensive private school and I don’t pay a dime bc I am in a 6 person household that made 26,000 dollars last year most coming from unemployment to my dad that he spends on stupid shit for himself. Anyways besides the point. So I’m eating in the cafeteria and this guy is mad about something that happened with his teacher he said he asked the teacher what she thought about people always abusing ebt. And I immediately cut him off bc that’s a sensitive subject to me that I’m not tryna here some little rich kid talk about but he ignored and said stuff and Medicaid too and he was mad that the teacher took it the wrong way and made it seem like he was being rude. So I told him that maybe that wasn’t something he should have his business in seeing as he’s very far on the other end of the spectrum and at this point the two other people at the table and ate uncomfortable as well and trying not to look at him and he goes on about all the money wasted on ebt that shouldn’t have been going there and I was like yeah how dare there use a 100 grand to feed children instead of painting another pool. And he was getting frustrated at this point and talking about how he’s not saying some people don’t need it just that xyz amount of people in a city (the poorest city in our town) had all this ebt credit and debit and I went off on him about how the took a fourth of our ebt when I started living at this school even though my mom still has to buy me food to bring up here and then trumps bills almost halved the rest of it for my other three siblings. And then my poor uncle who’s wife just died didn’t have her insurance set up or some stupid shit so he woke all day every day so he can afford stuff now that he doesn’t have her unemployment money so they took him off food stamps AND medicaid and the two older girl don’t get free lunch anymore and his daughter who turned one the day before her mom died my uncle can’t afford the best food for her so she just eats like fucking raviolis everyday. And in the city he’s talking about I’ve seen people on as much ebt as you can get still struggling to eat bone skinny having to go to the church and school to feed their kids over the summer but never in my life have I seen someone have a surplus of ebt?? God it just makes my blood boil at how stupid these supposedly smart ass rich kids are that they can’t even put themselves in the shoes of someone going through something you’ve never even thought about being an issue growing up. I just stood up and stormed out in front of everyone and the guy was actually my friends bf and I expected her to text me or something but I fear she might be just as bad off as him and it’s so infuriating idk what to do ugh idk how I’ll stand his stupid face again when all I can think about is the struggles I’ve been through with money and food that doesn’t count as ebt and no hot food because my parents never had time to cook. I didn’t even have fast food until I was like 15 years old. And he just argues it like some inferior debate topic!?

I just got food stamps in Washington but I'm really confused on the first three months and 80 hours work week or volunteer rule. I'm unemployed just moved trying to find a job. Do I have to start the 80 hours ASAP or do I have a three month grace period to find a job and volunteer work in the first place? It's not very clear at all. I'm autistic so this stuff is very confusing to me.

Was recently terminated from my job as of 08/18. I have already applied for unemployment and was approved for ~$468/week, but I am unsure how the income requirements for SNAP work. My net income with my prior job was ~$3,400/month (Gross: ~$4,300) and I know the SNAP income limit is below that. Would they base approval off my prior income, or off the new unemployment income?

I’m kind of confused what this means, I’m 19 unemployed and my mother is also unemployed and we’re currently living with a friend right now but only got approved for 3 months

I got denied maybe 30 minutes ago to an hour?

I don’t understand why though.

It said “Blank must be on another SNAP case” but.. I’m not 🥲

The only possible way I POSSIBLY could be is my father, but I think he makes too much, I haven’t seen him in years and I doubt he knows my information.

What do I do?

It said I’d have to talk to some kinda officer, but I don’t want them coming to my place. Do they need to go to your place??- I don’t know 🥲

Please help! 🥲

So a few (maybe winter) months ago I got a letter from the food stamp people meant for people who had no income. I had to certify I had no income and that would recertify me for the year. I was confused because I knew work requirements were down the road so I came to this forum and a nice woman explained the form to me and I signed it. I figured the requirements would be coming in ‘27 like Medicaid’s.

Yesterday I got an email from Propel, telling me that I had to get this in order and to call my case worker. It gave me links to offices in my county.

I have a caseworker? I went into my HRA app and there is nothing mentioning this and no open cases.

What am I missing?

I needed to submit documents for my change report (i did a week before they were due) and all it says it’s completed as of today, but when i check the notification center it doesn’t have anything at all. Is this normal? It also just says my renewal application is with a caseworker but nothing says completed on that part. My renewal was due next month but i wanted to knock it out of the park but now im scared i done messed something up lol
I’m in FL if that helps

My rent and bills are obviously way more than what unemployment covers, so there is already a huge deficit. Even then, I got rejected. Why would they change my 1800/mo to 1950/mo and reject me?

So my husband (sole provider) was laid off recently. We also have a 1 year old that I care for. We applied for food stamps and were approved for $275 a month.

Now, my friend and her husband receive around $700 every month both working minimum wage.

I was under the impression that the less you make the higher it would be plus we are a bigger family?

(We are grateful. I'm just trying to understand the system)

edit: we're in Florida

Do we have any Cola this year

They are refusing to use my GPS generated mileage logs (through Everlance) as proof of use of my vehicle during the generation of self employment income. Their reasoning is that "there is no way to prove that all of those miles were used for buisiness." But then they ask me if I have fuel receipts. Little pieces of paper that are barely legible and don't even have my name on them in most cases. In most cases I refuel late at night after most stores have closed so that I can just wake up and roll out the next day. And we all know the likelihood of getting a receipt from the pump itself is very slim. I would think that mileage logs that correlate directly to the dates and times that I was actively delivering orders would be a more verifiable source of proof.

I am the only earner in our household. My daughter is intellectually disabled and home schooled. My mobility impaired wife stays home with her. As of May, I was making about $2,000-2,400 per month before expenses up until May. Working 8+ hours per day 5 days per week. Around 70-80 miles per day. Sure, I could have worked more if conditions were perfect. But they weren't. I had to be home sometimes.

Our redetermination was supposed to be completed in May but the case worker dropped the ball and let the case lapse supposedly due to high case load. At that time my income was within the limits. But on June 1st our benefits were terminated. They nearly completely ignored our case until about 4 weeks ago. At that time they used my earnings from June before any expenses whatsoever to deny benefits.

From June 10th through today I have been working 12+ hours per day, 250+ miles per day average, 7 days per week. Aside from a day here and there that I either simply can not get out of the bed or I have had to cut a day short for vehicle maintenance. I've only had 3, maybe 4 actual days that I have taken off of over the past three months where I can actually rest. And my earnings before expenses are what they are currently using to deny my claim.

But the more I work, the higher my expenses are. The more I earn from working, the lower my benefits are, regardless of my expenses.

I’m in Tennessee and have applied for SNAP twice. Both times, these were the standard SNAP interview calls. I followed the exact instructions the representative gave me, wrote everything down during the call, and submitted all requested documentation within three days of each interview. I even submitted multiple documents for each verification request to make sure I had provided enough.

I was always as pleasant, cooperative, and understanding as I could possibly be throughout every interview. I genuinely tried to be patient and give the representatives the benefit of the doubt, even when I was confused or concerned.

The first interview was with a very nice representative who told me I should be good to go. She asked me to submit only two or three documents, which I did. I was then surprised weeks later when I was denied for supposedly failing to submit something. I had never been told that this additional document was required. I also didn’t receive the denial notice until after the period for submitting the document had already passed.

I initially wondered whether there had been some kind of mail delay because of the government shutdown. When I mentioned this during my second interview, the representative very rudely told me I was incorrect. I wasn’t blaming DHS or accusing their office of anything—I was suggesting that perhaps there had been delays with the Postal Service. He then insisted that I had been notified and accused me of never submitting the required document, despite the fact that I had submitted everything I was actually told to submit.

I remained pleasant and cooperative during this interview as well. He also asked whether anyone else lived with me and requested their names. I explained that I only knew my roommates’ first names because they were brand-new roommates I hadn’t even met yet, and I wasn’t the person who chose them. He said he’d been doing this for over a decade and couldn’t believe I didn’t know who I was living with. I genuinely had no reason to know their last names at that point.

I’m now in the same situation again: I followed the interview instructions exactly, submitted everything requested within three days, and was still denied for allegedly failing to provide verification.
I’m also at least partially disabled and have an extremely difficult time advocating for myself. I tried very hard to handle this correctly, but I tend to shut down when someone becomes aggressive or confrontational with me, regardless of how much I practice. I also don’t have any family support in the area.

I know I may be eligible for some kind of public-benefits assistance or legal aid, but I have no idea how to actually get in contact with anyone. Even the thought of calling someone about this is incredibly overwhelming. I really do want to push through and appeal, but I feel very trapped.

I’m young, single, and am generally very good at appearing healthy, so I’m also worried about being judged or dismissed if I go into an office in person. I know I’m in a difficult situation, and I honestly wish I could just fix myself so I could handle these situations better.

I’d really appreciate any advice from people who have dealt with SNAP appeals in Tennessee, especially if there are ways to get assistance or representation without having to navigate everything completely on my own.

Note: post edited for formatting clarity.

Just like the title says. I uploaded the required documents to the Manage My Case portal on August 2nd and am thinking of calling sometime next week to see about getting someone to at least look at them so I don't end up losing my food stamps. Each state should have their recipients have their own caseworker instead of just whoever answers the phone first.

my SNAP app got denied bc i missed my interview (which, i was not even notified to schedule one despite me indicating i want email notifications to do so) even though i was calling multiple times a day but legitimately never got through to an actual person.

how do I even troubleshoot this bc again.... i cant even get through to anyone to even discuss re-scheduling an interview...

I was approved July 27 for Expedited services. I sent over all documentation the day it was requested and nothing has happened with my case. I cannot get in touch with a case worker at all. I have waited to call the customer service line early morning when they first open and they see that I have done everything I needed to do but say that the case worker should get to it soon. I have also gone to the local office who also verified that I sent everything over and that a case worker should get to it soon. Its a week away from a month of no movement on my case. Is there anything I can do to try and get in touch with the case worker?